Learning in a digital age/Crowdsourcing topics for LiDA

Context: The OERu is developing a first year level course for formal academic credit focusing on learning and digital literacies for the 21st century. We (Gráinne Conole and Wayne Mackintosh) need your help to crowdsource and identify some of the topics and key questions a course like this should cover.

If you were developing a 1st-year level course called Learning in a Digital Age what topics or questions would you include? There are three ways to contribute:

Share a tweet using the hashtag #OERuLiDA. (We will copy your tweet and add it to the wiki list below).

Post directly in WikiEducator below (you will need to request a wiki account if you don't have one.)

All contributions are dedicated to the public domain.

Thank you for any suggestions you provide!

Suggested topics or questions

Ethics: How does my digital footprint, online identity, etc. provide evidence of what I know (Unit I), what I can do (Unit II), and most importantly, the values that underpin my contributions towards making the world a better place (Unit III)?

ICT: How can the same information and communication technology (ICT) be ideal in one particular context yet be a bad choice in another, quite different context?

PLN: How does your personal learning network (PLN) reflect how, when, and where you learn? How does your PLN compare to those of your classmates or colleagues?

PLN: What is the relationship between human interaction, technologies (or materials more broadly), and ideas when it comes to cultivating your own PLN?

Learning: How much of what you learn should be open or transparent (i.e. public) and how much should be kept private? Why?

Ethics: How might the written word be misinterpreted or offensive to an interlocutor who has no access to verbal and non-verbal communication? How might writing this way be avoided?

Philosophical: What is learning and how has it changed over the years, and how has it not changed?

Philosophical: How do definitions of digital literacy differ and what single aspect sticks out the most as being the most relevant to who you are and how you learn?

PLN: How might my PLN help me be less dependent on my instructor, allowing me to be a more independent and subsequently a more interdependent critical thinker?

What is digital citizenship and how is this promoted/taught at various education levels? (Google doc submission)

Rather than Learning: How much of what you learn should be open or transparent (i.e. public) and how much should be kept private? Why? How about “How do you decide what subset of your PLE (i.e. whole environment) should be a PLN (i.e. the public part) - and, possibly, how is the Network itself subdivided? (Google doc submission)

Will “My Digital Footprint” include ideas for managing its history, as well as the future? (Could be an interesting discussion for those in Europe who have a ‘right to be forgotten’ & those outside who don’t) … (Google doc submission)

Oh, and “does the digital native exist, or is she an unfortunate artefact of Prensky’s paper?” (Google doc submission)

If you use a "free" (gratis) cloud service, you're not the customer, you're the product they sell to their customers. The real cost of "Free": investigating the incentives, and emerging business models in the cloud era and considering the what constitutes "freedom" in this new world.

How can I earn a qualification through free study on the Internet?

Academic writing skills - how to plan & write an essay? How to reference? Formal vs informal language? Use of professional language in blog and discussion forums vs writing an essay. Could be incorporated into the module on learning literacies in the digital age. (Google doc submission)